Log Date: 6/26/2012
Not sure why I thought this one was going to be more of a park and grab. I guess I didn't look at the ratings....and I've been trying to let my thorn scratched legs heal! Not to mention arms and heads. Good thing I left my bike helmet on. TFTC

Since the excessive heat advisory ended, I had two choices - mow the lawn or find a few caches. Today, geocaching won out. This one has been on my watchlist since it came out, and since the updated coords and a couple finds have been logged, I decided to finally go after it. 145.9 feet? In keeping with the theme of the cache, that's almost half a football field! But since that's probably about as close as the Packers will get to the goal line when they play the Vikings next season, I'll give you a break. TNLN, thanks for the cache.

_________________There comes a time in every young boy's life when he gets an irresistible urge to seek buried treasure.--Mark Twain

Love that log 15Tango! We are having to read through about 150 logs since we were on vacation for about 2 weeks. Here is another great log we got. Some say this would be overly obsessive, but I think it is awesome. Especially since the cache is really a 1 on difficulty!

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Log Date: 6/25/2012
I ended up with the same situation as the previous cacher. The container had been pushed past the bolt that goes through the sign. Now the cache could just barely be touched with a fingertip. Hmmm? What now? Give up? HA!! Back to the car for some tools. Got my workman's vest on and went back to gz. Tried a 6 inch tweezers...no good. Tried my tire iron, but that missed the container. Hmmm? I felt comfortable working on the sign with my workman vest on, so I carried on and used one of my tools to take the nut off of the bolt. AHA! The bottom of the sign popped up and there was the cache! Removed the container and re-assembled the sign. Signed the log and put the container where it can be easily accessed. Mission accomplished. TFTCSL See picture of me with my vest. I love a challenge!

Log Date: 7/15/2012
Taking the long way home after a weekend at Camp Ripley. I managed to find all of the caches on my hit list for the day. This is a long way out into the middle of nowhere. Worth the trip in though. I parked the car and made the trek out to ground zero. I found the beacon, but not the cache. Wait, is that, Crap. I found the cache floating in the swamp. High water must have moved it. After retrieving the cache, I brought it up to the trail to check it out. Good thing the CO upgraded to an ammo can. The contents were nice and dry. Replaced everything back together at the beacon. XNSL TFTC

This afternoon several kids started a fire at GZ burning about an acre of land. The kids claimed they were "geo-caching" and had found a "Lighter" and wanted to see if the lighter worked. I guess this is a good reminder to ensure that proper items are being placed in these caches. The cache owner may want to check the condition and contents of the cache as I did not have a chance to.

I know I'm biased because it is our cache hide and we've anxiously been waiting for someone to finally solve AND find it, and SNB always has a humorous way with words, but this log just cracked us up (especially the 3rd and 4th paragraphs)!

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Co-FTF with Ms. Sunshine. This was unexpected. When I left for vacation last week, I had banged my head unsuccessfully against this puzzle for a good hour before running out of time. I figured it'd be long found by the time I got back, but then the other night I was looking through the list of unfound caches and noticed that it still hadn't been found, and now had a handful of DNFs on it.

When I realized last night that Ms. Sunshine and I were going to be relatively close this morning looking for the benchmark streak cache together, I figured I'd give the puzzle a quick shot with the idea that we could stop by for a look if we had the coordinates. At first I tried bribing JJ to skip work so that we could get around solving the puzzle, but when that plan didn't work I sat down and tried doing things the old fashioned way.

Three hours later I was nearly insane, and had driven my wife and kids crazy with incessant questions about this puzzle. I tried everything I could think of and then some. The places my mind went, and the answers I fired into the geochecker were all over the map. I became obsessed with solving this thing. To make matters worse, when I mentioned that I was working on this puzzle for three hours to JJ, he casually replied that he had solved the FINAL in just a few minutes, and got past the checker on his first shot. AARGH!!! The MADNESS!!!

Finally, as the clock drew on midnight, I started questioning my assumptions about the puzzle and realized that I had made quite a few. Then I tried something, mostly in desperation, but when I did my screen flashed green and there was the dancing Homer. WHAT!?! If I lived in a ten-story building, I'd be dead, because I jumped right out of the window. I don't want to say too much, but I can say that I had the answer after working on the puzzle for about five minutes, and well before I left on vacation. I just never knew it.

Anyway, with that part complete, the hunt was on. I must say that because Ms. Sunshine was there I felt pretty confident in our chances, even though part of me was greatly concerned that SID and pfalstad had looked for the cache for an hour and DNF'ed it. I mean, SID in particular finds EVERYTHING, and if he and pfalstad didn't find it in an hour, I figured we'd be there for a while. Armed with RAID hornet spray and rations for two weeks, we made our way to ground zero and started looking.

I don't want to give away the hide, but I can say that we had the cache in hand about ten minutes later. It was very much a dual effort find, and we didn't even see mosquitoes let alone a hornet. All in all I think it's fair to say that we got pretty lucky, but we did have a pretty good plan going in, and it was that plan that put us in the position to get lucky. I'm not sure at all what that means. Coords were dead on for us, as we found the cache about three feet from where I put my backpack down to mark ground zero. Much jubilation ensued as we signed in on the empty log. Woot! Thanks for the puzzle (kind of) and cache! Oh, yes, thanks for the $5 as well, which Ms. Sunshine graciously let me keep for gas money. (5481)

Log Date: 8/5/2012
WooHoo!!! I'm so happy to get home and see that I couldn't see what it wasn't I
couldn't see. [] I was trying to look around without being obvious (I'm sure as
an amateur ninja I failed) and could not find this. And it took me a LOOOONG time.
But that was ok, because I got to experience people jumping from the cribs. Of
course I also got to hear "It's really slick up here" and wonder if someone was
going to do a header. (It's amazing how well the sound carries).

It was a beautiful day, and my only disappointment at the time was that I couldn't
find the cache (It's an awesome name too btw). Now I have confirmation that I
didn't completely suck in that regards, so it's all good.

Log Date: 8/5/2012
WooHoo!!! I'm so happy to get home and see that I couldn't see what it wasn't I
couldn't see. [] I was trying to look around without being obvious (I'm sure as
an amateur ninja I failed) and could not find this. And it took me a LOOOONG time.
But that was ok, because I got to experience people jumping from the cribs. Of
course I also got to hear "It's really slick up here" and wonder if someone was
going to do a header. (It's amazing how well the sound carries).

It was a beautiful day, and my only disappointment at the time was that I couldn't
find the cache (It's an awesome name too btw). Now I have confirmation that I
didn't completely suck in that regards, so it's all good.

You should live in his "home" area...what you have there is one of his "standard" logs... lol_________________You may only be young once...but I will be immature forever!!!

Log Date: 8/6/2012
Nice to see everyone today. Crowd seemed a bit smaller than usual. This make 101 consecutive KB finds and find #10,000. Looks like I am the 16th person in MN to join that club. SL. Thanks for the Event.

Log Date: 8/5/2012
WooHoo!!! I'm so happy to get home and see that I couldn't see what it wasn't I
couldn't see. [] I was trying to look around without being obvious (I'm sure as
an amateur ninja I failed) and could not find this. And it took me a LOOOONG time.
But that was ok, because I got to experience people jumping from the cribs. Of
course I also got to hear "It's really slick up here" and wonder if someone was
going to do a header. (It's amazing how well the sound carries).

It was a beautiful day, and my only disappointment at the time was that I couldn't
find the cache (It's an awesome name too btw). Now I have confirmation that I
didn't completely suck in that regards, so it's all good.

So since I wrote this, let me translate. I'll do it in several different dialects. We'll start with

Caveman:

GAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!! BLURGH!!!! AHHH!! HAHAHA! MUNCH!

R2D2:

BLEEEP!!! WHIRRRRRR!!!! COO!!!!

Ok, those aren't going so well, so let's try the real thing:

Brain dump:
Hey there are a lot of people around here. Boy, oh boy, do muggles make me nervous because the last thing I want to do is cause a cache to be muggled... and boy oh boy there are a lot of them around here (muggles that is). But I don't want to quit without giving it a try... Especially when I rarely get up this way and won't have a chance again. Especially when people say "I walked right up to it".

What the heck am I missing that is so obvious? Let's look under here. Nope. Let's look behind here. Nope. Oh good grief, it's not in the rocks is it? (There sure are a lot of rocks).

(10 minutes later)

GAAAAAAAAH!!!! What am I missing?!?!?! I should go. I have other ones I want to look at. But I can't leave, because others found this easily!!! Hey is that guy watching me? (I'm supposed to be ninja-like right?) We'll wait until they move along. In the meantime I'll look at the hint and the logs.

(A minute or two later as I glance up)

Ah good, there they go toward's Uncle Harvey's creation. Wait, people ACTUALLY jump off of that on a regular basis and not just on special occasions? What's that they said? It's really slick up here? No matter what I feel a little less stupid already. Well let's start looking again.

(Another 10 minutes later).

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! I have to DNF another 1.5 hide on this trip?

(3 days later as I'm getting ready to log when I finally get home)

Hey!!!!! Look this has been marked as unavailable. That means the evidence for me being a clueless doof is at least diffused for a bit, and I shouldn't have been able to find it. THANK GOD! I would really hate for people to wonder about me and my mad caching skills! Ok, I would hate for me to wonder that much about my caching skills.

Of course I'll probably find out that the reason it was unavailable was because the log was full, but the fact that it is unavailable is a lot easier for my pysche to handle than getting an e-mail telling me that the next person who showed up found it easily (and I have already gotten a couple of those from the trip).

Hopefully that clears up any confusion. Or at least distracts from the previous confusion.

And yes, it was a beautiful day, and it really is a neat area with some nifty history. And the group who went up top really looked like they were having balance issues, to the point where I wasn't going to watch them.

Log Date: 8/10/2012
Well, this is a day for the memory books... first of all, I scored 25 finds today in and around Plymouth while my wife was at a conference all day at the crowne plaza, one of my all time highest! Next, the weather, talk about the absolute perfect conditions! A light breeze, warm but not at all too warm, it doesn't get much better than that. FINALLY, I was asking nature for a sign as to whether or not I was going to be fine from having stuck my hand in Lily Lake in Stillwater, where two children have died from a rare bacterial infection. The first sign? Walking for the final part of a multi for A MILE! and coming up at GZ to a completely random tree from which I scared some huge LOUD bug. (Maybe a cicada?) So I thought...hmmm.. maybe that's a sign. A few minutes later, about 100 small red bugs were hanging out on the sidewalk (not boxelders) that for no apparent reason completely scattered when I drew near...no sticky food, no dead bug bodies.....hmmmm... well maybe that's it.... and finally a NASTY BEE STING right on my thigh which followed the first day of jogging I had done in years just yesterday right on my sore spot..... okay nature, I get the hint! TFTC and all the great placements in beautiful Plymouth! Totally worth a favorite point, I'm going to make something like this back in Stillwater! Plus I scored the bonus F-150! Thanks so much

At the risk of sounding self-indulgent, this happens to be my favorite of my own logs. Not because of what I wrote, but because of the experience. I happened to be reminded of this two days ago when I met the CO for the first time. And yes there are parts of this that make no sense either, but hopefully it's because of the other person mentioned

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This was probably my most amusing experience caching in quite some time. I drove around for a bit, trying to figure out where the best place to park was. Plus I could see a guy sitting on a bench on the bike path, so I figured I needed to give him a bit of time to move. Well as it turns out he didn't, but I decided to get out of the car and scout out the area. As I get near the guy, he sees me and immediately calls to his dog which is sitting directly behind the bench, but the guy obviously hasn't been paying attention. Could be because he's got ear phones on... or it could be as I would find out in just a minute, he was not quite all there.

He finally gets the dog's attention (the dog is thinking why do I have to move it would appear) and the dog sits next to him. I take a slight detour not wanting to cause the scene. As I do so, the guy yells out "Stay in the light or the mosquitoes will eat you up!". "Thanks", I say! Of course with the earphones on, he doesn't hear me. Well as I focus on where I'm going again, I notice that I'm actually getting closer to GZ... and hey there's another bench! Because of the tree coverage I can't see the guy, but I can certainly hear him talking out loud to himself, his dog or something else. "I bet he's getting eaten alive by the mosquitos!" I didn't for what it's worth. There were several other comments, however the kicker was "I know what he's doing in there! He's getting high!". And he was partially right although not the type of high he was referring to, because I was signing the log at that moment. I'm not sure if that counts as being stealthy though.

This was my second expedition to the highest point in Minnesota. The first was about 20 years ago with my brother and a couple of friends. This time we mounted our expedition of five, which included my brother, his son, my son and his four year old (Frenchy), around 11:00am with perfect weather. At the trailhead we met two guys coming in that had spent the night at the peak watching the Perseids Meteor Shower. They said that it was great show and mentioned something about 67 events? We had camped at the Cascade River National Forest Campground just south of the Trailhead in hammocks. We were in a heavily forested area with a limited view of the sky and the only event we recorded was when the four year old took a dump right in the middle of the campsite. We all laughed uproariously as the dad picked up after him just as if he had been a longtime dog owner from an urban landscape. We made a really quick pace for the first few 1000 yards while everyone suffered from "bagititis", then started a more casual pace. It is interesting that with rugged terrain as this you tend to watch the ground most of time and rarely look around into the forest. We stopped numerous times to photograph many of the strange fungi growing along the path. Most interesting was the Cortinariuis violaceus, commonly known by our group as Purple Pride. I guess it is edible but leaves a bitter aftertaste especially if consumed late in the season particular near the playoffs. Our "team" split up numerous times, with each member wandering off muttering, "Hey, Look at that!" Luckily the trail is well defined although strewn with rocks and roots and we all met up at the top. We took some unchoreographed "Bolting" photos, read the plaque and wandered around the summit taking in the views. We had planned to have wienies at the summit for lunch, but had forgotten our stoves and the lack of current volcanic activity forced us to eat our wienies cold. With an unsatisfying lunch consumed we began a leisurely stroll back with the lead being alternated between our 1st Class Scout and the Little Frenchman. My brother and his son reconned the South Whale Lake Campsite on the way back, making wolf howls from the under brush as we approached. When Frenchy heard the howls he rushed into the brush with his walking stick flailing at the bushes. I doubt whether my brother will pull that stunt again as he took quite a beating. Back at the trailhead we downed all the liquids we could find in our transport vehicle "Calypso", which immediately caused the Frenchman to begin "marking" all of the tires of the vehicles in the lot. Those four year olds are just like puppies, constantly wanting attention and peeing on everything!